Mark R. Whittington wrote:

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
.. .


On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 02:56:37 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Poop
Dogg" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:



CNN is reporting that Dick Cheney is being sent out to discuss the
possibility of a new moon mission and even a Mars mission.

Of course, we won't admit that this sudden interest in resurrecting
the space program has anything to do with China's announcement that
they intend to put a Chinese on the moon by 2020. I'm sure that
the timing of this announcement is just a coincidence.


Yes, it has nothing to do with the fact that we have had to totally
rethink space policy since the loss of Columbia...



Actually both would seem to be a factor in space policy deliberations.

Yes. It is obvious that Columbia forced a rethinking of space policy.
And from
the mentioned CNN article:

"You've got the Chinese saying they're interested -- we don't want them to
beat us to the moon. We want to be there to develop the sweet spots,"
Republican Senator Sam Brownback says.

Note also that a Japanese legislator made similar comments (I can't find the
quote) last week about their space problems versus the Chinese successes.

Though some usually very insightful people in this newsgroup stated
repeatedly
that China going to the moon wouldn't force the west to reply, because
the west
wouldn't think that its manhood was seriously threatened. I think we can
say that
some people who actually have a say on those things do think that their
manhood is threatened by China on the moon.

Alain Fournier